Three Things You Need to Know Today

CRISPR Makes a Promising Cancer Therapy More PotentA cancer treatment that uses modified immune cells may get a shot in the arm. Genetically engineered T-cells are being tuned to kill cancer, and initial tests show that they could work phenomenally well. But a new study published in Nature suggests that when the cells are engineered using CRISPR/Cas9 the tweaks can be made more carefully, resulting in T-cells that attack cancers for longer. The upshot: in mouse experiments, the CRISPR-tuned cells fought tumors even more effectively than regular engineered T-cells.

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The Marketplace Turning Neighborhoods Into Power PlantsA new renewables marketplace makes small-time energy moguls of homeowners. Virtual power plants promise to ease the intermittency issues of renewable energy, by using software and batteries to combine separate solar panels as a single large source. The new Distributed Energy Exchange, being trialled in Australia, allows homeowners to connect their domestic solar set-ups to such a scheme. When excess power is being generated somewhere on the grid, smart devices enable homeowners' hardware to offer up spare battery capacity—for a fee.

Transparency Alone Won't Fix Algorithmic BiasThe fight against unfair algorithms will require a multi-pronged approach. Algorithms invariably contain bias—from the people that write them, as well as the data they’re based on—and a commonly suggested solution is to demand transparency to ensure people understand them. But in a thoughtful essay comparing algorithms to bureaucracy, writer Adam Clair points out that such an approach will lead to people gaming the system—which, in turn, will prompt engineers to continually tweak their code, ensuring that it always remains opaque. There are, however, other approaches to making algorithms accountable.